Battles between communities and oil and gas drillers have dotted Colorado’s Front Range over the last five years. Now, as the state imposes a new rules requiring consultation between drillers and local governments, the question might be asked whether “peace is at hand.”

When Henry Kissinger first uttered that phrase, there was still much bloody fighting and bombing to come in Vietnam. So it may be in Colorado’s fracking war.

To address the controversy and to get initiatives off the 2014 ballot aimed at bolstering local control over drilling and moving rigs farther from homes, Gov. John Hickenlooper created a task force to seek solutions.

The last of the group’s recommendations — the one that spoke most directly to the role of local government — was the seed for regulations adopted by the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission on Jan. 25.

The task force called for defining large-scale oil and gas facilities and requiring drillers to consult with local government in siting such facilities within 1,000 feet of homes, a school or hospital — designated urban mitigation areas — before seeking a state drilling permit.

If the local government and operator can’t agree, there could be a mediation. The ultimate decision, however, would rest with the state oil and gas commission.

The recommendation also called for clarifying the authority and procedures the director of the oil and gas commission could use to reduce conflicts with communities and locate operations as far as possible from homes. The new rule does not deal with the third part of the recommendation.

“The COGCC staff made the narrowest interpretation possible,” said Matt Sura, a task force member and an attorney who represents municipalities and homeowners on oil and gas issues. “It is so narrowly drawn that it takes in less than 1 percent of the drilling projects in the state,” Sura said.

Matt Lepore, director of the oil and gas commission, said the mandate always was to focus on urban mitigation areas. “It may be 1 percent of the projects now, but it will grow,” he said.

“Communications between operators and local governments will increase, and the value is being seriously underestimated,” Lepore said.

Critics maintain the rule’s impact will be minimal.

“You delude yourselves if you think that passing this rule solves any of the problems that Colorado is facing,” Sara Barwinski, a task force member and community activist, told the oil and gas commissioners before they voted.

Of course, not everyone sees it that way. Kirby Wynn, Garfield County’s oil and gas liaison, said the commission “seemed to have thread the needle. … We are surprised you got it right.” The state’s two biggest oil and gas counties, Garfield and Weld, both dropped their criticism of the rule.

Dan Haley, president of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, the state’s largest trade group, voiced concerns over the delays the rule may create for operators. “This is a process to give local government a role, and it does,” Haley said.

Yet, as if to give weight to Barwinski’s prophecy, the night after the new rule was adopted, 580 people packed an Adams County Commission meeting, which ran more than eight hours, on how the county should cope with burgeoning oil and gas development.

The spark in Adams County was a proposal by Platteville-based Synergy Energy Corp. to drill 20 wells on a 35-acre parcel surrounded by the Wadley Farms neighborhood.

“It took everybody by surprise,” said Jacky Kowalsky, an area homeowner and head of the grassroots group Adams County Communities for Drilling Accountability Now.

The Wadley Farms project would qualify as an urban mitigation area, but Kowalsky said the new rule would change nothing. “Synergy’s proposal already includes the things that are required,” she said.

Kowalsky called the new rules “a road map for drilling in urban areas.” Citizens, she said, wanted a rule dealing with “where to drill” not a rule telling operators “how to drill.”

Synergy has tried to focus on “good communication and mitigation” at its sites, Brian Macke, the company’s director for government affairs, said in an e-mail. As for the new rules, Macke said Synergy is “evaluating the impact.”

Since the Wadley Farms issue first arose, another 60 state drilling permits have been issued for Adams County, according to county commissioner Eva Henry. “People are upset, they want you to do something, but there is not much we can do,” Henry said.

That remains the crux of the problem. Oil and gas development is largely exempt for local land use controls as a result of Colorado Supreme Court rulings. The same local zoning and nuisance ordinances that might be applied to an industrial facility trying to locate near a residential neighborhood do not apply to drilling projects.

It is a prerogative to which the state and the industry have clung and local governments have run up against. It was the issue with which the governor’s 21-member task force was to have dealt. But recommendations to clarify or reinforce the local role failed to gain the necessary two-thirds majority with the task force’s six industry members voting en bloc.

Three weeks before the oil and gas commission adopted its new rule, Greeley’s planning board unanimously rejected an application for a controversial, 22-well Triple Creek project in an area flanked by homes, but not an urban mitigation area. The reason: concerns about traffic.

The irony was that the operator, Denver-based Extraction Oil and Gas LLC, was trying to consolidate and move operations farther away from homes and into an area where there were already wells. It still ran into community opposition.

“Different communities have different values, different local rules,” said Brad Mueller, Greeley’s director of community development. “Some may want more oversight of oil and gas, others not.”

“Who gets to decide? At the end of the day, only a court case or legislation is going to answer the question,” Mueller said.

While Coloradans wait to see if the courts or legislature takes up the trail where the task force and oil commission left off, battles like Wadley Farm and Triple Creek will continue to be waged.

Mark Jaffe writes on Colorado environment and energy issues. He is a former Denver Post reporter.

To send a letter to the editor about this article, submit online or check out our guidelines for how to submit by e-mail or mail.

More in Perspective

We were devastated to read about the fatal truck crash in Colorado last month, and offer our deepest condolences to all the families affected. We pray that those injured will recover quickly and fully.

How do we as Coloradans honor the memory of Alex Sullivan, a young man who’s life was cut short on his 27th birthday when he was murdered in the 2012 Aurora theater shooting? What do we do to help our grief-stricken neighbors deal with the loss of a beloved son, who died because someone who had absolutely no business anywhere...

As a response to climate change, a carbon tax is immensely popular among economists from across the political spectrum, and it does have an important role to play. But it is far from sufficient, and putting a price on emissions won't work if it alienates lower- and middle-income voters.